March came, and the city lay white under its own dust. The electric fans began to purr in the Club, and Lent brought the flagging season to a full stop. I had to go that year on tour through the famine district with the Member, and we escaped, gasping, from the Plains about the middle of April. Simla was crimson with rhododendron blossoms, and seemed a spur of Arcady. There had been the usual number of flittings from one house to another, and among them I heard with satisfaction that Armour no longer occupied Amy Villa. I would not for the world have blurred my recollections of that last evening--I could not have gone there again. ‘He is staying with Sir William Lamb,’ said Dora, handing me my cup of tea. ‘And I am quite jealous. Sir William, only Sir William, has been allowed to see the exhibition picture.’ ‘What does that portend?’ I said, thoughtfully. ‘I don’t know. Sir William was here yesterday simply swelling with his impression of it. He says it’s the finest thing that has been done in India. I told you he would conquer them.’ ‘You did,’ and without thinking I added, ‘I hope you won’t be sorry that you asked him to.’ It must have been an inspiration. Armour, those weeks before the exhibition, seemed invisible. Dora reported him torn with the incapacity of the bazaar frame-maker to follow a design, and otherwise excessively occupied, and there was no lack of demands upon my own time. Besides, my ardour to be of assistance to the young man found a slight damper in the fact that he was staying with Sir William Lamb. What competence had I to be of use to the guest of Sir William Lamb? ‘I do not for a moment think he will be there,’ said Dora, on the day of the private view as we went along the Mall towards the Town Hall together. ‘He will not run with an open mouth to his success. He will take it from us later.’ But he was there. We entered precisely at the dramatic moment of his presentation by Sir William Lamb to the Viceroy. He stood embarrassed and smiling in a little circle of compliments and congratulation. Behind him and a little to the left hung his picture, large and predominant, and in the corner of the frame was stuck the red ticket that signified the Viceroy’s gold medal. We saw that, I think, before we saw anything else. Then with as little haste as was decent, considering His Excellency’s proximity, we walked within range of the picture. I am not particularly pleased, even now, to have the task of describing the thing. Its subject was an old Mahomedan priest with a green turban and a white beard exhorting a rabble of followers. I heard myself saying to Dora that it was very well painted indeed, very conscientiously painted, and that is certainly what struck me. The expression of the fire-eater’s face was extremely characteristic; his arm was flung out with a gesture that perfectly matched. The group of listeners was carefully composed and most ‘naturally’; that is the only word that would come to me.